New Order reminded of its commitment
JAKARTA (JP): As President Soeharto's New Order administration turns 30, more people are reminding it of its original commitment to creating an honest, just and truthful government, Gen. (ret.) Abdul Haris Nasution said Saturday.
Nasution, affectionately known as Pak Nas, said that many New Order government officials had breached this commitment.
"They are afraid they won't get any of the development cake," Pak Nas said in his address at a seminar titled Actualization of the New Order Government's Ideals in Political and Economic Development.
The original commitment, he argued, was waning because many leaders were simply losing their ideals and patriotism, and were unable to resist the temptation of corruption and collusion.
"Corruption and collusion are so widespread that (the late) Bung Hatta described corruption as part of (Indonesian) culture," he said.
Mohammad Hatta and Sukarno proclaimed Indonesia's independence on Aug. 17, 1945. Sukarno was subsequently elected president and Hatta as vice president.
Pak Nas, 78, was an Army chief of staff and then a defense minister under the Sukarno administration. He chaired the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly which stripped Sukarno of his power in 1967 and gave rise to Soeharto.
Known as a government critic, Pak Nas is also well-known as the man who created Dwifungsi, or Dual Function doctrine, which allows the Armed Forces a role in politics.
He reminded the seminar that the Indonesian army pledged allegiance to the 1945 Constitution when he and Soeharto signed a declaration on May 5, 1966.
"In the declaration, we pledged to normalize the implementation of the Constitution, especially to uphold democracy and respect civil rights which were restricted during the emergency period at that time," he said.
Nasution said the eradication of social injustice should be the government's first priority in maintaining national stability.
He said that widening socioeconomic disparity in Indonesia resulted from the national development program which overemphasized the economy.
"The social gap threatens development efforts as we have witnessed in many other developing countries. Among the indicators of social disparity is the extent to which principles of democracy and social justice are respected, not only statistics (on economic development)."
Pak Nas explained how the Dwifungsi doctrine had deviated from his original concept, which he has been questioning more and more.
He said he created the doctrine to give members of the Armed forces a chance to solve the state's problems by contributing ideas to the government.
Since its conception, he said, the doctrine has changed to justify Armed Forces members who assume civilian posts in government, such as village chiefs, governors, regents and so forth.
He said he practiced the original doctrine as commander of West Java's Siliwangi military command when he asked his men to actively seek ideas on how Indonesia should overcome its military and sociopolitical problems.
Now in practice, what is conspicuous is not the Dwifungsi in its original sense but its justification for the development of extra-constitutional institutions such as Kopkamtib, he said.
Kopkamtib, or the command for restoration of security and order, has been replaced with the less-powerful Bakorstanas.
Organized by the Jakarta chapter of the Corps of Alumni of the Indonesian Moslem University Students Association, the one-day seminar also featured political scholars Arbi Sanit, Deliar Noer and Yusril Ihza Mahendra. (pan/imn)